Hey, lester, another book you might like is Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke. If you haven't heard about it, it concerns the time between the world wars, thru to the end of 1941, and traces the decisions made that ultimately led to the beginnings of World War Two as we know it. The entire book, written by a pacifist, is composed of virtually nothing except quotes from the major figures or descriptions of the actions of literally thousands of people alive in the period between the wars, each of whom played some part in the outcome of history. It's a familiar story told from a different angle.

Currently reading Michael Slade's "Crucified" which seems, at first glance, like an attempt to compete with Dan Brown.

Recently finished Slade's most recent Special X crime novel, "Kamikaze." I really enjoy Slade's books. Kind of like a horror story wrapped in a whodunit wrapped in a history lesson wrapped in a police procedural. Riveting stuff, and meticulously researched. The books are currently written by a father-daughter team with backgrounds in criminal law and history. Apparently, the Slade pen name has had a couple of owners over the years.

I read Off Season. It was enjoyable, and didn't leave me with the kicked-in-the-stomach feeling that The Girl Next Door did.

I'm currently reading a multitude of books, but am focusing on The Terror by Dan Simmons. It's a historical horror based off of the lost Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The men on the two ships get trapped in the ice and must spend the time trying to stay warm while fighting off malnutrition and scurvy. Unfortunately, there is something else out on the ice that slaughters the occasional man from time to time.

It's a great book. I admire how thoroughly the situation goes from bad to worse, and then much worse.

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Every dead body that is not exterminated becomes one of them. It gets up and kills. The people it kills, get up and kill.

Are you talking about " Just after Sunset" the new collection of short stories? I've been reading it for the last few days. So far I'd give it 3 stars. A few of the stories have been pretty flat, in that you read it and say "Is that it?" A couple of them have been good, I'm in the middle of "The Gingerbread Girl" right now and it's the best I've read so far.

"On a mountain of skulls in a castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood. What was will be, what is will be no more. Now is the season of evil." - Vigo (former Carpathian warlord and one-time Slayer lyric-writer)

ER- I had a choice between that and Pat Buchanans latest which has a similar theme and I'm a big fan of pats believe it or not so I opted for that one "churchill hitler and the unneccasary war" but they both have the same sort of idea. post war is very interesting thusfar. 1939 thru 1945 were basically a battle between germany and russia to see who could be the most horrible. I can't fairly say who won. then after the war came retributions against collaborators and so forth and massive ethnic cleansing.

I have the Buchanan book, too, lester, but I've only read the first few chapters so far. I don't think it's as similar to Human Smoke as it might seem once you get into it, but you're right, there are points in common, yeah. Both are re-examinations of the accepted versions of World War Two history, and neither makes Churchill come off unblemished or accepts that the war was inevitable or had to be as bloody as it was. I'll get back to finishing the book soon. Studying mistakes is fine but overall I think it might just be ungrateful for those of us who are the heirs to the post-war world to be too critical of those who won WWII and gave us the world we've lived in since.

I think Buchanan's best work was probably State of Emergency, his dead-on accurate diatribe on the illegal immigrant catastrophe not only in America but in the entire west, which he claims is under invasion.

I think for the first time in modern history right-wing intellectuals (not neo-cons but the old school kind, what few remain) seem to be writing better books than their left-wing counterparts. Never thought I'd say so, but I think it's true.

I found copies of all four original Bachman books at a flea market not too long ago and I was thrilled. I'd read Running Man before and thought it was great. I instantly preferred the Bachman persona titles to the actual King ones. Anyway, I'd been hoping (in vain, I thought) to run across Rage for a while, 'cause I know that one's out-of-print and a bit controversial due to it's subject matter. I was excited to read it and I thought it was great. Now, I just started The Long Walk. I'll read Road Work last, since I'm not really terribly interested by that one. But if The Long Walk is as good as Running Man and Rage (which I suspect it will be) then I'll be happy.

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"On a mountain of skulls in a castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood. What was will be, what is will be no more. Now is the season of evil." - Vigo (former Carpathian warlord and one-time Slayer lyric-writer)

Danny Peary - "Cult Movies". Reminds me of some of the great and not-so-great-but-certainly-unique movies I have yet to see.

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"The basic plot is that Donna Speir and Hope Marie Carlton, the two undercover DEA agent Playboy Playmates from the last movie, are still running around in jungle shorts, cowboy boots and spaghetti strap T-shirts, firing their machine guns at drug smugglers, Filipino communist guerrillas, and corrupt federal agents while their two friends, Lisa London and Miss May 1984 Patty Duffek, lounge around the pool a lot and talk on speaker phones that look like fax machines."-Joe Bob on SAVAGE BEACH

ER- have you heard of the ludwig von mises institute? they have released alot of excellent right wing history and economics books.

my favorites are probably the Driver by garett garet, The discovery of freedom by Rose Wilder Lane, and the politically incorrect guide to capitalism by robert Murphy, which is actually put out by someone else but he writes alot for them.